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[♪ pensive music]

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[Sybil Phoenix]
Children have been burnt,

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not West Indians, Black British!

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That is what I want said!

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They're burning our children!

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Why haven't Parliament...
said anything?!

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[reporter] This is all that remains
of the three-story house

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where nearly a hundred young West Indians

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were celebrating at an all-night
birthday party for two young friends.

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That night, we were there at the party ...

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and for people outside looking in,

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I mean, you know,
maybe they can just imagine.

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[reporter]
Just before 6:00 this morning,

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the singing and dancing
gave way to panic

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as flames shot through the upper floors
and screaming teenagers

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began to leap from the windows.

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[Richard Gooding]
For what we really, really went through,

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that time, to be even sitting here,
talking about it, you know, is--is hard.

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[young man]
It was just horrific, a girl and a boy,

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they just sort of fell,
right down to a basement.

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[Andrew Hastings] The fire,
you literally had seconds to get out.

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I just couldn't really believe
it had all happened,

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and it just became a living nightmare.

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[Sandra Ruddock] I just remember
kids lying on stretchers,

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burnt till they were pink.

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And the smell of burning flesh;
that'll go to my grave.

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[reporter]
The party began at eleven last night,

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then at 6:00, there was a loud bang.

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[Wayne Haynes]
There was just smoke everywhere,

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and then, afterwards,
people were telling me that

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some white man had thrown
a petrol bomb through the window.

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[young man] I saw this bloke
standing up in the pavement,

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then he made this throwing movement
with his right hand.

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At that point in 1981,
color mattered.

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We are very dissatisfied with
the way the government has behaved,

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Parliament has behaved.

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[Wayne Haynes]
The problem became that

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the New Cross fire became
an "us and them" affair.

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It became a Black and white affair,

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but this whole thing
was about youngsters being murdered.

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[Sandra Ruddock]
The fire at 439 New Cross Road,

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whether it was deliberately inside,
deliberately outside,

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I have always believed
it was a deliberate act.

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[Wayne Haynes] As a kid,
you grow, and you have fantasies,

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and one of mine
was being able to fly.

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That's my way out...

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and that's what it was.

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I think I still have that kiddie dream

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of flying off into the sunset
and everything being all right one day.

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My name is Wayne Haynes.

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I was born in London,
a place called Lee Green, which is

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is very leafy, very '60s suburbia.

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Don't ask me how I ended up

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being a teenager living in New Cross
in what we called ghetto.

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[laughs] That was not part of the plan
when my mum gave birth.

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But my mother and father split up,

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my mum had a nervous breakdown,
I ended up in care,

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for two years, being fostered,
with a white family,

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who treated me like
I was one of their own.

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It's life, and you get on with it,

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and you learn,
and it teaches you that...

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people are people.

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[children laughing]

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[Denise Gooding]
My name is Denise Gooding.

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I grew up in Camberwell
in South East London,

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with my mum and my dad
and my three brothers.

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We lived in a flat.

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It was a four-bedroom flat.

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It was good, it was nice living
in a flat, because it's like a community,

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so then you'd all knock on
each other's doors, and in those days,

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everybody came to our house.

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My parents, I think they felt
safer knowing that,

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as long as we were there,
they would know where we are.

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[indistinct chatter]

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[Ena Gooding] It was an open house
in our case, I told them.

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If someone keeps comin'
and I send them away

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and something happened out there,
I would blame myself.

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So, you know,
I always let them in.

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[Denise Gooding]
Plus, my dad played dominoes.

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[laughs]
So him and all his friends,

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and have family that would be coming
on a Friday night and playing dominoes.

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So while they are playing the dominoes,
we'd be playing music,

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because Richard and David
and Andrew were all into music.

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[♪ upbeat music]

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My name's Richard,
Richard Gooding.

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To be truthful, our house was pretty open
with my mum and dad's friends,

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so there was always, like, music.

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We would just sit in the house,
I'd play my vinyls.

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What we called "toasting" back then.

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[♪ reggae music playing]

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And David would be
playing the bass guitar.

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One of my friends would be singing,
and Andrew would be banging...

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banging away at this thing, making drums.

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I don't know, for some reason,
he seemed to like drums, I don't know.

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[chuckles]

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I was the oldest of the four of us.

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David, he's a younger than me.

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My brother Andrew,
he was four years younger than me,

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and my sister, Denise, well,
she's always been the baby.

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I mean, we're really close,
just a typical family.

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We didn't have much, but you know,
we were really happy.

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[♪ reggae music continues]

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My name is Sandra Ruddock.

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Mum and Dad were
the sweetest people ever.

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Uh, my dad, was a famous wrestler.

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[announcer]
In the blue corner, ladies and gentlemen,

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King of the Headbutts,
from West Africa, Johnny Kwango!

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[Sandra Ruddock]
He was King of the Headbutts.

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He had a really hard head.

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It was showmanship.
They were there to entertain the public.

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-[silly exclamation]
-[announcer and crowd chuckle]

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[Sandra Ruddock]
We lived in Dulwich until I was about 8,

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and then we moved to Peckham.

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And we had to be careful
with the friends that we chose.

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Me and my brother were
not allowed to get in trouble

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with the police or do anything untoward.

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My mum always used to say
to remember,

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"It's your dad's reputation
when you go out on the street."

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We used to go to work with him.
I quite enjoyed that.

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I loved going to work with my dad,

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I loved it, it was nice.
I liked sitting in the front row,

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the old biddies going up and shouting,
"Leave him alone. Leave him alone!"

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I'm going, "Yeah, that's my dad,
leave him alone!"

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[laughs]

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[exclaims]

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[announcer and crowd laugh]

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[announcer] And he's over the top
for Kwango, holding the arms well.

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That's got to be it.

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[Sandra Ruddock]
My mum was just a housewife, really.

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They were happily married
for 40-odd years,

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and I remember at school...

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couple of guys, said,
"Oh, if there was

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a war between Black and whites,

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what side of the fence would you be on?"

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I was quite upset.

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[♪ "Children of the Ghetto" playing]

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[indistinct chatter]

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In my time at school...

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The Telegraph and the Daily Express...

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[Wayne Haynes] ...Black boys
were not encouraged to do anything.

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I was already being told,
"You're not going to be... a pilot."

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[Richard Gooding]
By then, you know,

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you would hear a lot of kids at school
saying, you know,

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"Go back home,
get back on your banana boat,

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and go back where you come from,"

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and things like that.

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So, then, you know,
I then-- as I got of age,

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I started to hear about National Front
and knew what they were all about.

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[man on speaker]
We believe that the only solution

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to the rising tide of race trouble
in this country

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is for a complete stop
to all further colored immigration

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and for total repatriation
of the colored immigrants

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and their descendants.

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[reporter] The National Front
is wooing the white vote

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with calls for repatriation
and more police.

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[man on speaker] So, no chanting,
no singing, no banner waving.

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You're just pedestrians out for a stroll
to give out leaflets, all right?

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My name is George Rhoden.

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I grew up in a time
when racism was prominent.

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I know that there were National Front.

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I've seen them walking in through town

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and they've got their leaflets,
they're handing out their leaflets,

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the same white middle-aged men.

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And they've been stopping
immigration right away.

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Sending out their messages,
driving along in the street.

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[man on speaker]
The National Front say stop immigration.

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Then screaming out
obscenities to you.

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I'd seen them outside the school,
and so anyway, one day,

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we're having a laugh after school
and things like that...

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and I could see a little bit
of a flicker of a flame.

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And saw a small group of people
burning a cross.

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We all looked at each other and think,
"What they doing?"

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Like that, I was probably what,
I don't know, 14, 15?

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"What they doing?" And then you saw...

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the guy with the hood, he was probably
the only one with a hood on.

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That was the Ku Klux Klan.

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I never proved it, but why
would you be burning a cross,

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and the guy's got a hood on?

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Could it just be a little bit of a joke?
Don't know.

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But scared the shit out of me.
[laughs]

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[man on speaker]
Stop colored immigration.

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My name's Mykaell Riley.

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I grew up in Handsworth, in Birmingham,

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as a first-generation Black
British-born individual.

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Back in the '70s,

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00:10:00,760 --> 00:10:03,160
my household,
as with many households,

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had the Queen adorning
the top of the fireplace or something.

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And we would complain about society

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outside the house.

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And our parents would always default

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to assuming we'd done something wrong,

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and we were ignorant of our own history.

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00:10:19,840 --> 00:10:21,960
Right? So we're trying to find ourselves.

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00:10:22,040 --> 00:10:26,440
And then, Bob Marley arrives
with a narrative which has given us

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00:10:26,520 --> 00:10:29,400
an alternative sense of identity.

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00:10:29,480 --> 00:10:31,960
♪ No sun will shine ♪

197
00:10:32,040 --> 00:10:34,720
♪ In my day today ♪

198
00:10:35,960 --> 00:10:37,960
♪ No sun will shine ♪

199
00:10:39,400 --> 00:10:42,080
♪ The high yellow moon ♪

200
00:10:42,160 --> 00:10:44,720
♪ Won't come out to play ♪

201
00:10:44,760 --> 00:10:46,720
[Mykaell Riley]
So we're listening to each record

202
00:10:46,760 --> 00:10:49,360
to get a sense of who we are.

203
00:10:49,440 --> 00:10:53,160
♪ Darkness has covered my light ♪

204
00:10:53,240 --> 00:10:55,200
And songs like "Concrete Jungle"

205
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directly spoke to the challenge
of growing up,

206
00:10:59,080 --> 00:11:00,360
to being Black British.

207
00:11:00,440 --> 00:11:04,200
♪ Where is the love to be found? ♪

208
00:11:04,280 --> 00:11:07,440
And this is the Britain
that I'm growing up in

209
00:11:07,520 --> 00:11:12,200
with aspirations to...
conquer the world through music.

210
00:11:12,280 --> 00:11:15,480
In the background of most,
if not all reggae,

211
00:11:15,560 --> 00:11:17,120
it stems from suffering.

212
00:11:17,200 --> 00:11:20,920
♪ Instead of concrete jungle ♪

213
00:11:21,000 --> 00:11:23,360
Reggae is suffering, basically.

214
00:11:25,000 --> 00:11:27,440
And it's truth as well.
[chuckles]

215
00:11:27,520 --> 00:11:30,480
♪ Concrete jungle ♪

216
00:11:31,160 --> 00:11:34,960
♪ Man, you got to do your best ♪

217
00:11:36,120 --> 00:11:38,200
My name is Alex Wheatle.

218
00:11:38,280 --> 00:11:41,200
I grew up without any family whatsoever.

219
00:11:41,280 --> 00:11:43,480
My mother could not look after me, so...

220
00:11:43,560 --> 00:11:44,960
I was placed into care

221
00:11:45,040 --> 00:11:47,560
and so, I was totally detached
from my culture.

222
00:11:47,640 --> 00:11:49,160
Until I went to Brixton.

223
00:11:50,480 --> 00:11:53,160
♪ I know I am bound here ♪

224
00:11:53,240 --> 00:11:55,040
I mean, I was growing
to love Reggae music,

225
00:11:55,120 --> 00:11:57,360
from even before I moved to Brixton,

226
00:11:57,440 --> 00:11:59,280
and to hear it, everywhere,

227
00:11:59,360 --> 00:12:01,600
it seemed to be every street corner.

228
00:12:01,680 --> 00:12:03,480
I remember Soferno 'B'.

229
00:12:03,560 --> 00:12:05,920
I remember Desmond's Hip City.

230
00:12:06,000 --> 00:12:08,240
♪ Never known what sweet caress is ♪

231
00:12:08,320 --> 00:12:10,920
I remember Bob Marley's track
"Concrete Jungle."

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00:12:11,000 --> 00:12:12,680
I had very much low esteem.

233
00:12:12,760 --> 00:12:15,880
I had to fight against that
almost on a daily basis,

234
00:12:15,960 --> 00:12:18,480
to reclaim my identity,

235
00:12:18,560 --> 00:12:21,640
and Reggae music
helped in that process.

236
00:12:22,160 --> 00:12:24,000
[♪ upbeat percussion]

237
00:12:25,560 --> 00:12:30,800
My name's Andy,
and I was a friend of Paul Ruddock's.

238
00:12:31,960 --> 00:12:35,440
I first became aware of Paul
due to the music.

239
00:12:35,520 --> 00:12:38,040
He was playing his radio quite loud.

240
00:12:38,120 --> 00:12:40,440
[over radio] Capital Capital Capital...
record break.

241
00:12:40,520 --> 00:12:44,760
[♪ George McCrae: "Rock Your Baby"]

242
00:12:46,920 --> 00:12:49,760
He played "Rock Your Baby"
by George McRae.

243
00:12:50,840 --> 00:12:53,920
I didn't know he was Black
for the first month.

244
00:12:54,000 --> 00:12:55,920
Couldn't actually see him,
he couldn't see me.

245
00:12:56,000 --> 00:12:57,960
'Cause we were both in traction.

246
00:12:58,040 --> 00:13:00,920
I had to look up to the ceiling because

247
00:13:01,000 --> 00:13:03,840
it's the most comfortable place
to rest my head.

248
00:13:04,600 --> 00:13:07,360
I had a severe motorcycle accident,

249
00:13:07,440 --> 00:13:10,640
and found out that he had
a motorcycle accident.

250
00:13:10,720 --> 00:13:13,440
Anyway, the rooms were adjacent.

251
00:13:13,520 --> 00:13:16,240
He used to play music--
Capital Radio at the time.

252
00:13:16,320 --> 00:13:18,920
I used to play music, Radio One.

253
00:13:19,400 --> 00:13:22,680
But it was really hot, summer of 1976.

254
00:13:22,760 --> 00:13:25,200
So we had the windows open,
the doors open,

255
00:13:25,280 --> 00:13:27,280
and we used to like
shouting to each other,

256
00:13:27,360 --> 00:13:28,800
"Did you like that song?"

257
00:13:28,880 --> 00:13:30,960
It was a bit of a competition, really.

258
00:13:31,040 --> 00:13:33,840
We had two different stations
blaring out the music.

259
00:13:33,920 --> 00:13:37,800
The nurses used to come into
the room and say, "Right, stop. Stop!"

260
00:13:38,840 --> 00:13:40,320
And then they would walk off,

261
00:13:40,400 --> 00:13:42,560
and then we'd turn
the radios up again.

262
00:13:42,640 --> 00:13:44,400
[funky rock]

263
00:13:44,480 --> 00:13:48,920
I played him "Play that Funky Music
White Boy" by Wild Cherry.

264
00:13:52,240 --> 00:13:54,720
I'm not sure that Paul actually liked it.

265
00:13:54,800 --> 00:13:57,240
He went, "Mm." [laughs]

266
00:13:57,320 --> 00:14:01,120
He was quite interesting to talk to,
and confident.

267
00:14:01,200 --> 00:14:04,160
But he used words
that I had never heard before.

268
00:14:04,240 --> 00:14:07,840
He used the word "cool,"
and "Oh, that's cool."

269
00:14:07,920 --> 00:14:10,880
And, "Oh, what does that mean?"
You know?

270
00:14:12,960 --> 00:14:16,240
[Wayne Haynes]
When I came back to London,

271
00:14:16,320 --> 00:14:18,720
and they had moved my mum to New Cross,

272
00:14:18,800 --> 00:14:22,160
we lived on the estate
with a bad reputation,

273
00:14:22,240 --> 00:14:24,040
Milton Court Estate.

274
00:14:24,120 --> 00:14:26,200
That's the beginning of ghetto.

275
00:14:26,880 --> 00:14:29,680
We called ourselves
the "Ghetto posse,"

276
00:14:29,760 --> 00:14:33,160
but the police created
that ghetto where...

277
00:14:33,240 --> 00:14:35,840
the way how you policed it
and handled it,

278
00:14:35,920 --> 00:14:38,040
you've locked us off
into our own little circle.

279
00:14:38,760 --> 00:14:42,640
Back in our day, the police
used to pick you up as a youngster.

280
00:14:42,720 --> 00:14:45,200
They're not phoning your parents
as soon as they pick you up.

281
00:14:45,280 --> 00:14:48,600
They take you down the police station,
or they take you in the back of the van,

282
00:14:48,680 --> 00:14:50,920
and they kick hell out of you...

283
00:14:52,000 --> 00:14:54,040
and then they just let you
back out on the street.

284
00:14:54,800 --> 00:14:58,320
[♪ reggae music playing]

285
00:14:58,400 --> 00:15:00,400
[man shouts]

286
00:15:01,480 --> 00:15:03,360
My name is Peter Bleksley.

287
00:15:03,440 --> 00:15:06,920
By the late '70s, at the end
of my 18 months in the cadets,

288
00:15:07,000 --> 00:15:10,080
I became the uniformed
police constable,

289
00:15:10,160 --> 00:15:12,080
and I'm told I'm going to Peckham.

290
00:15:12,160 --> 00:15:14,720
I learned very quickly that it had a...

291
00:15:14,800 --> 00:15:18,120
considerable Afro-Caribbean population.

292
00:15:19,400 --> 00:15:22,640
I've lived in Bexley Heath,
I've been trained in Hendon.

293
00:15:22,720 --> 00:15:24,320
I'm a teenager.

294
00:15:24,400 --> 00:15:28,160
Black faces I think frightened me.

295
00:15:28,240 --> 00:15:30,880
I... I wasn't familiar.

296
00:15:34,440 --> 00:15:39,080
And I pretty quickly learned
that there was

297
00:15:39,160 --> 00:15:43,080
a lot of racism
within the police force.

298
00:15:43,160 --> 00:15:45,160
People were fitted up with bags of drugs,

299
00:15:45,240 --> 00:15:47,320
people were fitted up
with offensive weapons.

300
00:15:47,400 --> 00:15:48,480
What's going on?

301
00:15:48,560 --> 00:15:50,280
[policeman] Sit in the back
of my motor and I'll tell you.

302
00:15:50,360 --> 00:15:54,320
And so often,
they were young Black people.

303
00:15:54,400 --> 00:15:56,360
When I'm walking
on the streets at night,

304
00:15:56,440 --> 00:15:57,680
they just come and stop me.

305
00:15:57,760 --> 00:16:01,360
They start picking on me and asking me
where I'm going, where do I live?

306
00:16:01,440 --> 00:16:03,840
And if you don't answer,
you find yourself in the back of the car.

307
00:16:03,920 --> 00:16:04,720
[young man] True.

308
00:16:05,640 --> 00:16:09,400
[reporter] In Brixton, there's been
a 25% increase in violent crime,

309
00:16:09,480 --> 00:16:11,400
things like robbery and muggings.

310
00:16:12,400 --> 00:16:13,400
Well, from leaving training school...

311
00:16:13,480 --> 00:16:16,240
[reporter] The dilemma has been
how to respond to repeated calls

312
00:16:16,320 --> 00:16:17,880
for more Black policemen.

313
00:16:17,960 --> 00:16:20,840
In uniform, it's really... nerve-racking.

314
00:16:20,920 --> 00:16:22,600
[reporter]
But those Blacks who do sign up

315
00:16:22,680 --> 00:16:25,160
are often seen as having
joined the other side.

316
00:16:26,240 --> 00:16:30,200
I was interested in policing
from a really early age,

317
00:16:30,280 --> 00:16:33,560
but at 16,
I didn't know what to expect.

318
00:16:34,720 --> 00:16:37,520
And, uh, when I told my parents,

319
00:16:37,600 --> 00:16:39,560
they looked at each other,
and you could see that

320
00:16:39,640 --> 00:16:40,960
there was fear in their eyes.

321
00:16:41,040 --> 00:16:43,960
They knew what the police were about,
they knew that they were racist.

322
00:16:44,040 --> 00:16:45,040
They knew.

323
00:16:45,640 --> 00:16:47,520
But they never, ever said anything.

324
00:16:47,600 --> 00:16:49,400
They-- all they did was supported me,

325
00:16:50,160 --> 00:16:53,760
When I told my friends,
everybody just stood there looking at me.

326
00:16:53,840 --> 00:16:56,160
And, one of them just stepped forward,

327
00:16:56,240 --> 00:16:59,520
and he just said, you know,
"Are you fuckin' mad?!"

328
00:16:59,600 --> 00:17:01,360
He said, "Boy, you're
going to become a traitor."

329
00:17:01,440 --> 00:17:03,000
He looked me up and down,
"You're going to become a traitor."

330
00:17:03,080 --> 00:17:05,720
And I'm like a little bit shocked
at his reaction.

331
00:17:05,800 --> 00:17:08,920
[reporter] Are things between you
and the police getting better or worse?

332
00:17:09,000 --> 00:17:10,760
-[young man] Worse.
-Well, I'd say worse.

333
00:17:10,800 --> 00:17:13,680
I said to the policeman that
you're not supposed to be parked

334
00:17:13,760 --> 00:17:15,240
on a double yellow line,

335
00:17:15,320 --> 00:17:17,440
so I carried on walking up Leyland Road,

336
00:17:17,520 --> 00:17:19,880
and then he just followed me
slowly with his car.

337
00:17:19,960 --> 00:17:22,560
And then he was calling me
"Black bastard" and...

338
00:17:22,640 --> 00:17:25,320
we should go back to our
own country and all this and that.

339
00:17:26,080 --> 00:17:29,800
[Wayne Haynes] These are the lifestyles
of what we were living back in those days.

340
00:17:29,880 --> 00:17:32,000
We used to get picked up
just for loitering.

341
00:17:32,560 --> 00:17:36,480
[George Rhoden]
So my first day, on duty, as I walked in,

342
00:17:36,560 --> 00:17:39,280
it just went quiet,
and I see everybody looking.

343
00:17:39,320 --> 00:17:40,800
Can you produce
your form numbers, please?

344
00:17:40,880 --> 00:17:43,720
So the sergeant said,
"Right. PC300,"

345
00:17:43,800 --> 00:17:46,760
which was my number, "Yeah,
you will be with PC so-and-so."

346
00:17:47,760 --> 00:17:50,920
And all I heard,
"You must be fucking joking."

347
00:17:52,320 --> 00:17:57,200
And you are taught to take your radio
and do your signal checks.

348
00:17:57,280 --> 00:18:02,480
Like, "Charlie Victor from PC 300,
can I have a signal check, please?"

349
00:18:02,560 --> 00:18:05,760
And then they're supposed
to come back, and all I got was

350
00:18:05,800 --> 00:18:08,880
a barrage of monkey noises
that came through that radio.

351
00:18:12,000 --> 00:18:14,400
[reporter] The Evelyn Estate
in South East London

352
00:18:14,480 --> 00:18:16,560
is typical of the urban battlegrounds

353
00:18:16,640 --> 00:18:18,720
in which the muggers
and their victims meet.

354
00:18:18,800 --> 00:18:20,560
Here, the unemployed youngsters'

355
00:18:20,640 --> 00:18:24,440
impulsive need for cash
can easily be gratified.

356
00:18:24,520 --> 00:18:27,080
[woman]
I put the purse my shopping bag

357
00:18:27,200 --> 00:18:29,080
and I came round to the lift
and pressed the button,

358
00:18:29,200 --> 00:18:32,760
and as I did so, I turned round
and this dark fellow followed me in,

359
00:18:32,800 --> 00:18:34,800
and I put my hand in my bag
to get my purse out

360
00:18:34,920 --> 00:18:36,400
and it wasn't there to take it out.

361
00:18:36,480 --> 00:18:39,520
[reporter] That old lady,
the fear she and her friends have,

362
00:18:39,560 --> 00:18:41,160
is the fear of being mugged,

363
00:18:41,240 --> 00:18:43,320
and it's been associated
with the new generation

364
00:18:43,440 --> 00:18:45,400
of Black teenagers in the capital.

365
00:18:45,880 --> 00:18:49,880
Mugging, it was just seen
as being exclusively Black,

366
00:18:49,960 --> 00:18:53,960
as though it had been imported
into the U.K. by Black people.

367
00:18:54,040 --> 00:18:56,040
And the victims were white women,

368
00:18:56,080 --> 00:18:58,680
and so it became very very emotive.

369
00:18:58,760 --> 00:19:00,680
[Russell Profitt]
I think as well, one's got to say

370
00:19:00,760 --> 00:19:03,400
that there is a certain element
of racism.

371
00:19:03,480 --> 00:19:06,760
Now I hope that we move
away from that, and as Black people...

372
00:19:06,800 --> 00:19:08,440
[Russell Profitt]
My name is Russell Profitt,

373
00:19:08,520 --> 00:19:11,560
and during the late '70s,
I was working

374
00:19:11,640 --> 00:19:13,960
in primary education,

375
00:19:14,040 --> 00:19:18,200
and I also was a local councilor
on Lewisham Council.

376
00:19:18,280 --> 00:19:23,080
It really was very, very difficult
to shift the public perception,

377
00:19:23,160 --> 00:19:26,200
away from the issue
of muggings, as such.

378
00:19:26,280 --> 00:19:29,400
It was plastered all over
the local newspapers.

379
00:19:29,480 --> 00:19:32,560
Incidents were happening everywhere.

380
00:19:32,640 --> 00:19:35,520
When you looked at the facts,
that was not the case,

381
00:19:35,560 --> 00:19:37,920
and it was a shorthand way, basically,

382
00:19:38,000 --> 00:19:41,240
of saying to young Black people,

383
00:19:41,320 --> 00:19:43,320
"You will be criminalized."

384
00:19:44,280 --> 00:19:46,320
[man]
As the majority of police are white,

385
00:19:46,440 --> 00:19:48,400
might not like Black people,
you know what I mean?

386
00:19:48,480 --> 00:19:51,720
They're always on about, saying Black
youths mugging old women and all that,

387
00:19:51,800 --> 00:19:54,520
so that sort of brings out prejudice
against us.

388
00:19:54,560 --> 00:19:57,040
Who's making a complaint?
Who's making a complaint?

389
00:19:58,680 --> 00:20:02,880
At the time, the Black community
found themselves

390
00:20:02,960 --> 00:20:08,080
the scapegoats
for a lot of the ills then taking place.

391
00:20:08,200 --> 00:20:10,560
I think a lot of is scapegoat politics.

392
00:20:10,680 --> 00:20:14,920
Um, I think that people seem to think
that Blacks are easy targets.

393
00:20:15,000 --> 00:20:18,960
There was a sort of a-an arrest spree--

394
00:20:19,040 --> 00:20:23,640
21 young people arrested
on suspicion of muggings.

395
00:20:23,720 --> 00:20:25,400
[Syd Shelton]
My name's Syd Shelton.

396
00:20:25,480 --> 00:20:28,240
I was both an activist
and a photographer.

397
00:20:28,320 --> 00:20:30,320
The Metropolitan Police,
at 5:00 in the morning,

398
00:20:30,440 --> 00:20:33,040
smashed the doors down of 21 houses

399
00:20:33,080 --> 00:20:35,800
and arrested 21 young people.

400
00:20:36,560 --> 00:20:39,760
I heard about it because
I was asked to photograph the man

401
00:20:39,800 --> 00:20:42,920
leading the campaign
for the freedom of the Lewisham 21.

402
00:20:43,000 --> 00:20:45,800
And some of the people were
little more than children.

403
00:20:45,920 --> 00:20:48,800
But it was what inspired
the National Front

404
00:20:48,920 --> 00:20:52,800
to set up what they called
the Anti-mugging March,

405
00:20:52,920 --> 00:20:56,520
which was scheduled
for the 13th of August, 1977.

406
00:20:56,560 --> 00:21:00,080
They proposed to march
through New Cross and Lewisham.

407
00:21:00,160 --> 00:21:02,560
[Russell Profitt] The National Front
decided that that would be

408
00:21:02,680 --> 00:21:05,000
their way of showing that they were

409
00:21:05,080 --> 00:21:07,200
clearing out the neighborhoods.

410
00:21:07,280 --> 00:21:09,760
Now is the crunch.

411
00:21:09,800 --> 00:21:13,080
It's going to be a test of stamina,

412
00:21:13,160 --> 00:21:16,480
it's going to be test of nerves.

413
00:21:16,560 --> 00:21:20,560
We have got to institute
a swift and immediate program

414
00:21:20,640 --> 00:21:24,040
of humane repatriation
of all colored immigrants,

415
00:21:24,080 --> 00:21:26,800
their descendants,
and their dependents

416
00:21:26,880 --> 00:21:30,760
since the passing of
the British Nationality Act in 1948.

417
00:21:30,800 --> 00:21:32,280
[interviewer]
Including those born here?

418
00:21:32,320 --> 00:21:35,480
Absolutely, yes.
Including those born here.

419
00:21:35,560 --> 00:21:38,320
The fact that they are born here
doesn't make them British.

420
00:21:38,400 --> 00:21:42,720
There is a community that
you're part of that sees you as alien,

421
00:21:42,800 --> 00:21:46,880
that sees you as other,
that sees you as momentary,

422
00:21:46,960 --> 00:21:50,800
and we're looking back at our parents,

423
00:21:50,880 --> 00:21:54,320
and we're thinking
"Hold on a second, we were born here.

424
00:21:54,400 --> 00:21:55,920
We are British.

425
00:21:56,000 --> 00:22:00,360
How can you be applying the same
mentality, the same mindset to us?"

426
00:22:00,440 --> 00:22:05,320
My generation,
the first generation U.K. Black,

427
00:22:05,400 --> 00:22:08,640
refuses the National Front,

428
00:22:08,720 --> 00:22:13,800
the British Government, and anybody
else's calls for repatriation.

429
00:22:13,880 --> 00:22:16,120
How can you send me back
from where I came from?

430
00:22:16,200 --> 00:22:18,840
I was born here.
I'm going back where?

431
00:22:19,640 --> 00:22:21,960
[Andrew Hastings]
Well, I was anti-National Front anyway.

432
00:22:22,040 --> 00:22:24,400
We were living
in a multicultural society.

433
00:22:24,480 --> 00:22:27,200
I found it was different, it was new,

434
00:22:28,160 --> 00:22:30,160
but other people were scared of that.

435
00:22:30,760 --> 00:22:32,840
I used to go and stay at Paul's house,

436
00:22:32,920 --> 00:22:35,840
439 New Cross Road and...

437
00:22:35,920 --> 00:22:38,720
he invited me up there
because there was gonna be

438
00:22:38,800 --> 00:22:41,240
a National Front march through Lewisham.

439
00:22:41,320 --> 00:22:43,800
[reporter] The march is due
to start here, at Clifton Rise.

440
00:22:43,880 --> 00:22:46,720
Most residents say
they'll be staying at home,

441
00:22:46,800 --> 00:22:48,480
the odd houses already boarded up,

442
00:22:48,560 --> 00:22:52,840
and the police have advised everyone
to keep away from Clifton Rise.

443
00:22:52,920 --> 00:22:56,680
This was like, about two nights
before the march was due.

444
00:22:56,760 --> 00:22:59,360
Paul said, "Let's go and get a kebab."

445
00:22:59,440 --> 00:23:04,600
Went in the kebab shop, and this
white chap started racially abusing him.

446
00:23:04,680 --> 00:23:08,360
So Paul picked him up off his feet,

447
00:23:08,440 --> 00:23:10,880
and he just threw him out into the street.

448
00:23:10,960 --> 00:23:13,640
And this guy was then
staggering up the road,

449
00:23:13,720 --> 00:23:17,520
and then another guy
came flying out the pub,

450
00:23:17,600 --> 00:23:21,040
and he had a crash helmet on,
motorcycle crash helmet on,

451
00:23:21,120 --> 00:23:23,600
and he went straight up to Paul,
head-butted him,

452
00:23:23,680 --> 00:23:25,520
and then he ran back into the pub.

453
00:23:26,320 --> 00:23:29,320
With this, Paul ran down to his house,

454
00:23:29,400 --> 00:23:32,840
and he'd come back with
a great big knife, huge knife,

455
00:23:32,920 --> 00:23:34,800
and I said "Where's you
gonna go with that?"

456
00:23:34,880 --> 00:23:37,920
He said, "I'm going in there after him."
I said "No, no, no, come on."

457
00:23:39,760 --> 00:23:41,960
Then I realized, you know, the tension.

458
00:23:42,040 --> 00:23:44,800
There was this sort of tension there.

459
00:23:44,880 --> 00:23:46,680
[♪ music intensifies]

460
00:24:04,240 --> 00:24:09,560
The most difficult policing events
for me to deal with

461
00:24:09,640 --> 00:24:12,360
was the National Front demonstrations.

462
00:24:12,440 --> 00:24:16,760
You get on the coach to get down there,
and you would have officers

463
00:24:16,840 --> 00:24:19,560
from different stations
that were all joined together,

464
00:24:19,640 --> 00:24:21,120
and they call it "coming on aid."

465
00:24:21,200 --> 00:24:24,880
And at that time,
we were wearing long rain macs,

466
00:24:24,960 --> 00:24:28,040
so an officer went to put on
his long rain mac,

467
00:24:28,120 --> 00:24:30,120
and inside his long rain mac

468
00:24:30,200 --> 00:24:33,080
was a National Front badge.

469
00:24:33,160 --> 00:24:35,640
And I looked at him,
and he just looked at me,

470
00:24:36,400 --> 00:24:38,400
put the thing on and walked off.

471
00:24:38,480 --> 00:24:40,920
He didn't want to hide it,
he just put it, and he walked off,

472
00:24:41,000 --> 00:24:42,760
and I went, "Wow!"

473
00:24:42,840 --> 00:24:44,840
[chanting]
The National Front is a Nazi front!

474
00:24:47,480 --> 00:24:52,120
[Wayne Haynes] The problem was
the police allowed these people

475
00:24:52,200 --> 00:24:55,920
to march through
predominantly Black areas...

476
00:24:56,800 --> 00:24:58,640
knowing what it's gonna cause.

477
00:24:59,840 --> 00:25:01,640
[man on speaker]
We'll be moving off in just a minute!

478
00:25:01,720 --> 00:25:04,080
[Wayne Haynes]
So, they ain't coming past here.

479
00:25:05,200 --> 00:25:06,800
We ain't havin' it.

480
00:25:06,880 --> 00:25:08,680
You had the teenagers--

481
00:25:08,760 --> 00:25:10,840
they're not having it
because we were born here.

482
00:25:11,960 --> 00:25:15,800
Our parents came out,
our big brothers and sisters came out,

483
00:25:15,880 --> 00:25:17,640
Darcus Howe...

484
00:25:17,720 --> 00:25:19,600
Everybody came out because

485
00:25:19,680 --> 00:25:23,160
we were not going to be
intimidated in our own homes.

486
00:25:23,640 --> 00:25:25,760
[Syd Shelton]
I know the picture I took of Darcus Howe

487
00:25:25,840 --> 00:25:28,080
standing on the toilet block
on Clifton Rise.

488
00:25:28,160 --> 00:25:31,840
He gave a speech which was basically,
"They shall not pass."

489
00:25:32,520 --> 00:25:34,920
We knew there were scores
to be settled that day,

490
00:25:35,000 --> 00:25:37,760
we knew it was gonna be
a big confrontation and a fight,

491
00:25:37,840 --> 00:25:41,160
and we must stand up to this
intimidation of the community.

492
00:25:41,240 --> 00:25:43,280
[♪ rousing music]

493
00:25:46,640 --> 00:25:47,840
[protesters shouting]

494
00:25:52,720 --> 00:25:54,720
[George Rhoden]
So, it was a National Front march...

495
00:25:59,200 --> 00:26:03,080
Screaming obscenities
and screaming racist language

496
00:26:03,160 --> 00:26:06,600
across my bowls to the other side.

497
00:26:06,680 --> 00:26:08,760
The National Front
is the white man's fight!

498
00:26:08,840 --> 00:26:10,640
[crowd]
Join the National Front!

499
00:26:10,720 --> 00:26:14,360
I'm now protecting
the National Front people

500
00:26:14,440 --> 00:26:17,000
from being attacked by my own.

501
00:26:17,080 --> 00:26:20,040
[shouting]

502
00:26:22,520 --> 00:26:24,880
You know, there is pushing
and shoving and pushing and shoving...

503
00:26:24,960 --> 00:26:26,920
[shouting]

504
00:26:27,000 --> 00:26:29,400
"Why are you protecting them?!
Why aren't you protecting me?!

505
00:26:29,480 --> 00:26:30,480
"You Judas, you traitor!"

506
00:26:30,560 --> 00:26:33,080
I was like-- I was mixed up.

507
00:26:33,160 --> 00:26:34,600
Nazis!

508
00:26:36,440 --> 00:26:38,000
[shouting]

509
00:26:38,600 --> 00:26:39,760
[Wayne Haynes]
All white people ain't the same,

510
00:26:39,840 --> 00:26:41,680
just like all Black people
ain't the same.

511
00:26:41,760 --> 00:26:46,720
And you got a whole load
of English people...

512
00:26:46,800 --> 00:26:47,960
Bastards!

513
00:26:48,040 --> 00:26:50,600
[Wayne Haynes] ...they don't care
whether you are Black or you're white.

514
00:26:50,680 --> 00:26:54,240
[chanting]
National Front! National Front!

515
00:26:54,320 --> 00:26:56,520
[Wayne Haynes] So, you had
a lot of Black, white, pink, brown,

516
00:26:57,480 --> 00:26:58,800
out there fighting racists.

517
00:27:00,640 --> 00:27:03,880
These are people who are chanting,
"If they're Black, send them back."

518
00:27:04,480 --> 00:27:07,640
These people have to be
confronted and defeated.

519
00:27:07,720 --> 00:27:10,480
[clamoring]

520
00:27:10,560 --> 00:27:13,760
And it was very much--
almost like a medieval battle.

521
00:27:13,840 --> 00:27:16,840
I remember very well,
somebody opening the windows

522
00:27:16,920 --> 00:27:19,320
and putting two big speakers there
and putting Bob Marley's

523
00:27:19,400 --> 00:27:21,840
"Get Up Stand Up"
on as loud as they could.

524
00:27:21,920 --> 00:27:25,960
[♪ Bob Marley: "Get Up Stand Up"]

525
00:27:47,200 --> 00:27:51,400
[♪ Bob Marley:
"Get Up Stand Up" continues]

526
00:27:51,880 --> 00:27:55,200
[Haynes] During the Battle of Lewisham,
as everyone likes to call it now,

527
00:27:55,280 --> 00:28:00,360
for the first time we felt empowered
to do something about these racists,

528
00:28:00,440 --> 00:28:02,480
and people started fighting back.

529
00:28:02,560 --> 00:28:05,000
[reporter] The crowd which
had been held back was angry.

530
00:28:05,080 --> 00:28:06,680
They broke through the police cordon,

531
00:28:06,760 --> 00:28:10,720
and then another battle
between them and the police flared up.

532
00:28:10,800 --> 00:28:13,960
Three and a half thousand police,
the most ever seen in London,

533
00:28:14,040 --> 00:28:16,160
have been drafted in
for today's violence.

534
00:28:17,160 --> 00:28:22,480
[♪ Bob Marley:
"Get Up Stand Up" continues]

535
00:28:22,560 --> 00:28:25,880
[Wayne Haynes] And then you
started seeing police on horses,

536
00:28:25,960 --> 00:28:28,440
rushing down towards Peckham way.

537
00:28:30,360 --> 00:28:32,200
[♪ Bob Marley:
"Get Up Stand Up" continues]

538
00:28:34,800 --> 00:28:37,360
[Syd Shelton]
They put their entire mounted division,

539
00:28:37,440 --> 00:28:39,800
a quarter of the entire
Metropolitan Police.

540
00:28:40,640 --> 00:28:44,680
They also used riot shields
for the first time in mainland Britain.

541
00:28:44,760 --> 00:28:45,920
So, they came for a fight.

542
00:28:47,000 --> 00:28:48,120
[Wayne Haynes]
The police were attacking us.

543
00:28:48,200 --> 00:28:53,040
[♪ Bob Marley:
"Get Up Stand Up" continues]

544
00:28:53,960 --> 00:28:55,360
You couldn't attack us.
There's too many of us.

545
00:28:55,440 --> 00:28:56,720
For the first time ever,

546
00:28:56,800 --> 00:29:00,000
when the police started fighting,
we were fighting the police.

547
00:29:00,080 --> 00:29:03,520
[♪ Bob Marley:
"Get Up Stand Up" continues]

548
00:29:24,040 --> 00:29:27,280
[reporter] At one stage, the crowd
surrounded Lewisham Police Station

549
00:29:27,360 --> 00:29:30,480
and set fire to a motorcycle
belonging to a member of the press.

550
00:29:30,560 --> 00:29:33,360
[Wayne Haynes] '77 was the year

551
00:29:33,440 --> 00:29:37,000
that the racists realized
they had a fight.

552
00:29:37,480 --> 00:29:39,960
[man] You know, it really shows
what people think,

553
00:29:40,040 --> 00:29:43,480
just shows how much feeling there is
against the National Front.

554
00:29:43,560 --> 00:29:45,400
The majority of people
are against them, yeah.

555
00:29:46,080 --> 00:29:49,200
I just think the National Front
want someone to blame...

556
00:29:49,280 --> 00:29:50,480
[young man] Pick on.
Someone to pick on.

557
00:29:50,560 --> 00:29:52,320
...for what's happening
to the country at the moment.

558
00:29:58,440 --> 00:30:00,800
[Wayne Haynes]
About three or four months later,

559
00:30:00,880 --> 00:30:02,960
Moonshot gets burnt down.

560
00:30:03,040 --> 00:30:05,800
[reporter] On December the 14th,
when the Moonshot project

561
00:30:05,880 --> 00:30:08,760
was smoked out of the old mission hall
in Pagnall Street, Deptford,

562
00:30:08,840 --> 00:30:12,120
many Black people in the area
thought they smelled racialism at work.

563
00:30:12,200 --> 00:30:14,120
Moonshot,
it was one of the places where

564
00:30:14,200 --> 00:30:16,560
a lot of Black people used
to go and congregate again,

565
00:30:17,040 --> 00:30:19,840
and then, six seven months after that,

566
00:30:19,920 --> 00:30:21,600
I remember the Albany

567
00:30:21,680 --> 00:30:23,040
got burnt down.

568
00:30:23,520 --> 00:30:26,320
[reporter]
The Albany Theatre was gutted by fire.

569
00:30:26,400 --> 00:30:28,000
The blaze came only a week

570
00:30:28,080 --> 00:30:30,800
after the combination had staged
a series of plays

571
00:30:30,880 --> 00:30:33,480
aimed at fostering racial harmony.

572
00:30:33,560 --> 00:30:35,600
People from New Cross went to Moonshot.

573
00:30:35,680 --> 00:30:38,160
People from Deptford went to Albany.

574
00:30:38,240 --> 00:30:42,160
I believe that was a backlash
of the Battle of Lewisham.

575
00:30:43,400 --> 00:30:46,280
Petrol bombs were getting thrown all--

576
00:30:46,360 --> 00:30:50,160
they were taking white spirit
and spraying it through letterboxes,

577
00:30:50,240 --> 00:30:53,240
when your house in darkness,
and drop a match through.

578
00:30:54,040 --> 00:30:55,760
Well, that's your exit blocked.

579
00:30:55,840 --> 00:30:58,200
We live in flats,
we live in masionettes.

580
00:30:58,280 --> 00:31:01,080
What you going to do,
jump out-- jump out the window?

581
00:31:01,160 --> 00:31:03,640
That became a thing after hours,

582
00:31:03,720 --> 00:31:07,080
that used to happen around
Deptford and Lewisham and Peckham

583
00:31:07,160 --> 00:31:09,280
and places like Brixton.

584
00:31:09,360 --> 00:31:11,080
[reporter]
Last October, there was an attempt

585
00:31:11,160 --> 00:31:14,440
to burn down the home of
Mr. Jamal Singh and his family.

586
00:31:14,520 --> 00:31:17,520
[Russell Profitt]
It just was quite frightening.

587
00:31:17,600 --> 00:31:19,880
Racial incidents would occur,

588
00:31:19,960 --> 00:31:23,040
and none of these incidents that happened

589
00:31:23,120 --> 00:31:25,480
led to any arrests.

590
00:31:25,560 --> 00:31:29,440
There was almost like
a feeling that it didn't matter.

591
00:31:30,040 --> 00:31:31,880
[Wayne Haynes] I've never heard of
anybody getting arrested

592
00:31:31,960 --> 00:31:33,440
for doing one of those firebombs.

593
00:31:33,520 --> 00:31:38,440
Between '77 and '81,
I never heard of not one arrest.

594
00:31:38,520 --> 00:31:42,200
My name is Leila Hassan,
and in 1981,

595
00:31:42,280 --> 00:31:44,840
I was a member of
the Race Today Collective,

596
00:31:44,920 --> 00:31:47,640
based in Brixton,
and we were aware

597
00:31:47,720 --> 00:31:51,120
many of the police officers
were National Front sympathizers.

598
00:31:51,200 --> 00:31:54,040
So when the fascists attacked
a lot of book shops,

599
00:31:54,120 --> 00:31:56,480
we had a big campaign
against the racist attacks

600
00:31:56,560 --> 00:31:58,800
against radical and Black book shops

601
00:31:58,880 --> 00:32:01,840
that was mounted
by the fascists at that time.

602
00:32:01,920 --> 00:32:04,120
[John Larose]
The National Front is seeking

603
00:32:04,200 --> 00:32:05,960
to terrorize us out of existence,

604
00:32:06,520 --> 00:32:09,280
but we recognize the state
has a certain responsibility

605
00:32:09,360 --> 00:32:10,760
and we will bring it to the attention

606
00:32:10,840 --> 00:32:14,920
because if you were to arrange
self-defense groups here,

607
00:32:15,000 --> 00:32:17,880
you can rest assured that
the police would be attacking us.

608
00:32:17,960 --> 00:32:20,480
And not... and not the fascists.

609
00:32:20,560 --> 00:32:22,760
In the late '70s,

610
00:32:22,840 --> 00:32:26,880
that tension was increasing
across all the major cities

611
00:32:26,960 --> 00:32:30,960
where you have a sizable Black
community and Black youth.

612
00:32:31,040 --> 00:32:34,400
The state, the police, the media
was telling you,

613
00:32:34,480 --> 00:32:37,240
"You're not from here,
you don't belong here.

614
00:32:37,320 --> 00:32:38,400
Go home."

615
00:32:38,480 --> 00:32:42,600
And so, your sense of what is possible

616
00:32:42,680 --> 00:32:45,120
is severely challenged.

617
00:32:45,200 --> 00:32:47,640
[♪ funky music]

618
00:32:48,520 --> 00:32:50,720
I was in the band Steel Pulse,

619
00:32:50,800 --> 00:32:52,800
a small band in Birmingham.

620
00:32:52,880 --> 00:32:58,320
Our songs were a direct response
to the political backdrop of the day.

621
00:32:58,880 --> 00:33:03,240
♪ Walking along just kicking stones ♪

622
00:33:03,320 --> 00:33:06,360
♪ Minding my own business ♪

623
00:33:06,440 --> 00:33:10,880
♪ I come face to face
With my foe ♪

624
00:33:10,960 --> 00:33:14,280
♪ Disguised in violence
From head to toe ♪

625
00:33:14,360 --> 00:33:16,320
And so, "Ku Klux Klan" was

626
00:33:16,400 --> 00:33:19,840
a direct conversation,
I think, with racism.

627
00:33:21,480 --> 00:33:25,160
♪ To let me go
Was not dem intention ♪

628
00:33:26,160 --> 00:33:29,280
We thought that
these lynchings were happening

629
00:33:29,360 --> 00:33:32,360
by the police and by racist thugs.

630
00:33:32,440 --> 00:33:34,560
♪ It's the Ku Klux Klan ♪

631
00:33:34,640 --> 00:33:38,600
[Mykaell Riley] Myself and Alfonzo,
the other vocalist onstage,

632
00:33:38,680 --> 00:33:42,560
we wore the hoods, and I thought,
We want to leave you in no doubt

633
00:33:42,640 --> 00:33:44,360
of this message.

634
00:33:44,440 --> 00:33:46,880
And up until that point, our audience,

635
00:33:46,960 --> 00:33:48,840
our biggest audience, was punks.

636
00:33:48,920 --> 00:33:53,560
So we were wearing Ku Klux Klan hoods
on stage to a punk audience who,

637
00:33:53,640 --> 00:33:58,200
I think in the first few times
we donned the hoods,

638
00:33:58,280 --> 00:33:59,960
the audience just went silent.

639
00:34:00,040 --> 00:34:03,200
And outside our gigs
is the National Front,

640
00:34:03,280 --> 00:34:04,600
selling their papers,

641
00:34:04,680 --> 00:34:07,080
and saying,
"Uh, it's not about you mate."

642
00:34:07,160 --> 00:34:08,480
[laughs]

643
00:34:08,560 --> 00:34:12,000
♪ Hello, Maggie ♪

644
00:34:12,080 --> 00:34:15,360
♪ Well, hello, Maggie ♪

645
00:34:15,440 --> 00:34:18,760
♪ Now you're really
On the road to... ♪

646
00:34:20,440 --> 00:34:22,360
Terrific! You can do it on your own.

647
00:34:23,080 --> 00:34:25,480
Britain's at a turning point,

648
00:34:25,560 --> 00:34:28,800
and I believe that more trade--
yes, do clap.

649
00:34:28,880 --> 00:34:30,480
[laughter and applause]

650
00:34:30,560 --> 00:34:32,600
[reporter]
Do you see the Tory accusation

651
00:34:32,640 --> 00:34:35,880
that Labour has dragged Britain down
as a winning strategy?

652
00:34:35,960 --> 00:34:39,920
[man] I think what will decide
the electorate's choice will be,

653
00:34:40,000 --> 00:34:43,440
Under which party do you think
things will get least bad?

654
00:34:43,520 --> 00:34:47,520
There. What one pound
would buy in groceries

655
00:34:47,600 --> 00:34:51,840
under the Tory government
in my right, blue hand.

656
00:34:51,920 --> 00:34:53,880
[reporter]
From now on, both major parties

657
00:34:53,960 --> 00:34:55,760
will field their leaders
more or less daily.

658
00:34:55,840 --> 00:34:58,640
[interviewer]
I'd like to talk about some of the issues.

659
00:34:58,680 --> 00:35:01,040
I'd like to start on immigration.

660
00:35:01,120 --> 00:35:05,760
We must hold out the prospect
of a clear end to immigration.

661
00:35:05,840 --> 00:35:08,800
With the backdrop of

662
00:35:08,880 --> 00:35:11,880
national politicians attempting to exploit

663
00:35:11,960 --> 00:35:14,760
the differences between the communities...

664
00:35:14,840 --> 00:35:17,480
People are really rather afraid
that this country

665
00:35:17,560 --> 00:35:20,640
might be rather swamped
by people with a different culture.

666
00:35:20,760 --> 00:35:21,960
With Margaret Thatcher,

667
00:35:22,040 --> 00:35:26,960
Thatcher talked about
swamping the culture of the Brits.

668
00:35:27,040 --> 00:35:30,080
That if there's any fear
that it might be swamped,

669
00:35:30,160 --> 00:35:33,440
people are going to react and be
rather hostile to those coming in.

670
00:35:33,520 --> 00:35:36,640
I saw Margaret Thatcher,
with her statements

671
00:35:36,680 --> 00:35:40,120
about alien culture
swamping this country,

672
00:35:40,160 --> 00:35:42,200
and, personally, I hated her.

673
00:35:42,320 --> 00:35:43,520
What is she talking about?

674
00:35:43,600 --> 00:35:47,080
In my view, that's one thing
that's driving some people

675
00:35:47,160 --> 00:35:48,520
to the National Front.

676
00:35:48,600 --> 00:35:51,760
They don't agree with the objectives
of the National Front,

677
00:35:51,840 --> 00:35:54,920
but they say that at least they're
talking about some of the problems.

678
00:35:55,000 --> 00:35:57,800
[Leila Hassan] We produced
a special issue of Race Today.

679
00:35:57,880 --> 00:36:01,680
We understood that if a British
politician could get up and say that,

680
00:36:01,800 --> 00:36:05,640
then really, our lives were going to
be made much, much more difficult.

681
00:36:05,680 --> 00:36:07,520
[reporter]
The troubles began early

682
00:36:07,600 --> 00:36:11,840
as many of Southall's 30,000 Asians
blocked off every road to the town hall.

683
00:36:11,920 --> 00:36:13,800
National Front bastards!

684
00:36:13,880 --> 00:36:17,360
[reporter] The National Front was smuggled
into the Town Hall through a back street.

685
00:36:17,440 --> 00:36:19,600
Go back home!

686
00:36:19,640 --> 00:36:24,520
Police arrested 300 people,
and 40 people received hospital treatment.

687
00:36:24,600 --> 00:36:27,840
Blair Peach, a London teacher
and father of two children,

688
00:36:27,920 --> 00:36:30,480
was hit so hard on the head
that he died.

689
00:36:30,560 --> 00:36:33,200
Opposite the police station,
a small group gathered to protest

690
00:36:33,320 --> 00:36:36,080
at the circumstances
of Blair Peach's death.

691
00:36:36,160 --> 00:36:38,800
When I first heard about it,
I thought Blair Peach was Black!

692
00:36:38,880 --> 00:36:41,760
Because everyone
was so animated about that.

693
00:36:41,840 --> 00:36:44,160
The general discussion was,
"Oh, my God,

694
00:36:44,280 --> 00:36:45,880
they're killing us on the street now."

695
00:36:45,960 --> 00:36:48,920
[reporter] The Southall riots happened
while Mrs. Thatcher was out of London.

696
00:36:49,000 --> 00:36:51,560
But at her first stop today
in Huddersfield,

697
00:36:51,640 --> 00:36:53,160
she immediately talked about
what she called

698
00:36:53,200 --> 00:36:54,840
"last night's tragic events."

699
00:36:54,920 --> 00:36:58,400
We totally condemn the racial
policies of the National Front

700
00:36:58,480 --> 00:37:02,080
and we have no sympathy whatsoever
with any extremist group.

701
00:37:02,160 --> 00:37:06,560
[interviewer] But you will then have
a tough new immigration policy

702
00:37:06,640 --> 00:37:07,840
should you come to power.

703
00:37:09,080 --> 00:37:11,160
I have described what it is.

704
00:37:11,200 --> 00:37:14,480
How you describe what I say
is a matter for you.

705
00:37:14,560 --> 00:37:18,440
Hearing what Thatcher was saying,
it felt, because I was born here,

706
00:37:18,520 --> 00:37:20,840
that, um, I'm not wanted.

707
00:37:20,920 --> 00:37:24,160
[reporter] Here comes
the Prime Ministerial Rover,

708
00:37:24,200 --> 00:37:26,000
bearing now Mrs. Thatcher.

709
00:37:26,080 --> 00:37:28,640
[Alex Wheatle] And this
particular government doesn't want us,

710
00:37:28,680 --> 00:37:31,160
and it felt like they wanted
to purge us from the streets,

711
00:37:31,280 --> 00:37:32,840
even though we were born here,

712
00:37:32,920 --> 00:37:35,280
even though we were
as British as anybody.

713
00:37:37,600 --> 00:37:41,680
[Sandra Ruddock] Paul's family home
was 439 New Cross Road.

714
00:37:41,800 --> 00:37:45,560
It's a three-story Georgian
terraced house with a basement,

715
00:37:45,640 --> 00:37:47,080
on a main road.

716
00:37:48,080 --> 00:37:52,960
Paul worked in the evenings,
um, in a pub in Peckham,

717
00:37:53,640 --> 00:37:55,400
which my brother worked in,

718
00:37:55,480 --> 00:37:57,520
and he introduced me to Paul--

719
00:37:57,600 --> 00:38:00,120
we just hit it off straight away
from then on.

720
00:38:00,840 --> 00:38:04,360
He was fun, free, outgoing.

721
00:38:04,440 --> 00:38:07,520
Everybody that met him said,
"He's such a lovely guy,

722
00:38:07,600 --> 00:38:09,160
he's easy to get on with."

723
00:38:09,280 --> 00:38:13,680
I didn't really know much about
Paul meeting Sandra,

724
00:38:13,800 --> 00:38:18,160
but he did tell me he'd met this girl,
and her name was Sandra,

725
00:38:18,200 --> 00:38:20,000
and he said, "I'm gonna marry her."

726
00:38:21,120 --> 00:38:22,640
[Sandra Ruddock]
He asked me to meet him in the pub

727
00:38:22,760 --> 00:38:24,320
one evening after work.

728
00:38:24,400 --> 00:38:28,080
Sittin' at the bar, he said, "I've got
something really personal to ask you:

729
00:38:28,160 --> 00:38:29,880
Will you marry me?"

730
00:38:29,960 --> 00:38:33,120
I looked at him, I went,
"You're joking." I went, "Yeah, okay."

731
00:38:33,160 --> 00:38:34,960
I didn't think he was serious.
[chuckles]

732
00:38:35,600 --> 00:38:39,400
[reporter] Lady Diana was saying nothing
about her weekend with Prince Charles

733
00:38:39,480 --> 00:38:41,000
to the assembled press corps.

734
00:38:41,080 --> 00:38:43,920
[reporter] Lady Diana's nickname
at school was "Shy Di."

735
00:38:44,000 --> 00:38:46,680
-Is she shy?
-[woman] I believe she is slightly shy.

736
00:38:46,800 --> 00:38:49,320
So few people seem to know
anything about her.

737
00:38:49,400 --> 00:38:51,680
I'm not going to say anything.
Oh, sorry.

738
00:38:51,800 --> 00:38:53,520
Prince Charles did give us
a hint himself.

739
00:38:53,600 --> 00:38:54,920
He said we wouldn't have
to wait too long.

740
00:38:55,000 --> 00:38:56,360
Oh, careful! [chuckles]

741
00:38:57,200 --> 00:39:01,120
[Sandra Ruddock] These are
my wedding photos of mine and Paul.

742
00:39:01,160 --> 00:39:05,680
We got married
the 19th of July, 1980.

743
00:39:08,000 --> 00:39:10,840
That's a nice photo.
I like that one of me and him.

744
00:39:11,360 --> 00:39:12,880
It was a lovely day.

745
00:39:13,880 --> 00:39:16,880
He was blowing in my face
in this photo.

746
00:39:16,960 --> 00:39:17,920
[laughs]

747
00:39:18,600 --> 00:39:20,560
[reporter] Lady Diana is a good choice,

748
00:39:20,640 --> 00:39:23,120
and her father,
her uncle Lord Fermoy, and others

749
00:39:23,160 --> 00:39:25,440
have even vouched for her virginity.

750
00:39:25,520 --> 00:39:27,440
[man] She fits the bill
in a number of ways, yes.

751
00:39:27,520 --> 00:39:30,960
Obviously, she's going to be
bearing kings of England.

752
00:39:31,040 --> 00:39:35,640
Sandra was expecting.
She already had a daughter, called Vivien.

753
00:39:35,680 --> 00:39:39,040
That's my Vivien and Paul.

754
00:39:39,120 --> 00:39:40,920
And he was quite excited about

755
00:39:41,000 --> 00:39:44,280
having a baby
and taking the responsibility.

756
00:39:44,920 --> 00:39:47,120
[Sandra Ruddock]
After he had his motorbike accident,

757
00:39:47,160 --> 00:39:50,520
he was told that he might not ever
be able to father children, so...

758
00:39:50,600 --> 00:39:53,320
when I found out I was
pregnant with Janine,

759
00:39:53,400 --> 00:39:55,640
he was actually over the moon.
He couldn't believe it.

760
00:39:57,800 --> 00:40:01,400
That's a picture with his sister Yvonne.

761
00:40:01,480 --> 00:40:05,760
She had the nicest personality
you could ever dream of.

762
00:40:05,840 --> 00:40:08,640
Yvonne had actually said to me and Paul,

763
00:40:08,680 --> 00:40:11,480
"I'm going to ask mum if I can
have a birthday party.

764
00:40:11,560 --> 00:40:13,480
What do you think mum will say?"

765
00:40:13,560 --> 00:40:15,640
Paul said,
"We'll see what we can do."

766
00:40:16,480 --> 00:40:19,560
Her friend Angela was actually 18

767
00:40:19,640 --> 00:40:22,960
the same day she was 16,
and they were friends at school,

768
00:40:23,040 --> 00:40:25,840
so could they combine to two birthdays?

769
00:40:25,920 --> 00:40:28,400
So... that's what they did.

770
00:40:28,480 --> 00:40:31,960
[Richard Gooding] Yvonne was
my brother's girlfriend, my brother David.

771
00:40:32,040 --> 00:40:33,880
Yvonne used to frequent our house.

772
00:40:33,960 --> 00:40:36,120
[♪ reggae music]

773
00:40:36,160 --> 00:40:38,960
When she used to come round,
we used to play tunes in the house.

774
00:40:39,040 --> 00:40:41,680
She liked lovers rock.
[chuckles]

775
00:40:41,800 --> 00:40:44,760
I remember David giving her some record,
called "At the Club."

776
00:40:44,840 --> 00:40:46,880
[♪ Victor Romero Evans: "At the Club"]

777
00:40:46,960 --> 00:40:50,960
That tune was kicking at the time,
a Victor Romero... tune.

778
00:40:51,040 --> 00:40:53,640
[♪ Victor Romero Evans:
"At the Club" continues]

779
00:40:55,600 --> 00:41:00,920
David and Yvonne, they got together
not long before the party,

780
00:41:01,000 --> 00:41:03,400
because I remember, it was because...

781
00:41:03,480 --> 00:41:06,080
they were seeing each other,
is why I was allowed to go.

782
00:41:06,160 --> 00:41:07,960
I remember her standing in the kitchen,
she said to my mum,

783
00:41:08,040 --> 00:41:10,320
"Could Denise come to the party?
Can Denise and Andrew come to the party?"

784
00:41:10,400 --> 00:41:13,760
She was friendly
with Andrew and Denise.

785
00:41:13,840 --> 00:41:16,040
"Remember,
you have to come to my party."

786
00:41:16,120 --> 00:41:19,480
And if you don't come to my party,
don't talk to me anymore.

787
00:41:19,560 --> 00:41:23,200
You know, and they were
talking about the party...

788
00:41:23,320 --> 00:41:25,760
they were talking about it all the time.

789
00:41:25,840 --> 00:41:29,320
I declare Christmas season... open!

790
00:41:29,400 --> 00:41:31,760
[cheering]

791
00:41:31,840 --> 00:41:33,920
[Andrew Hastings]
I heard about the party at Christmas.

792
00:41:34,000 --> 00:41:36,080
I was gonna stay Christmas with Paul,

793
00:41:36,160 --> 00:41:39,040
and he said,
"Oh, I am going up to Rugby.

794
00:41:39,120 --> 00:41:40,160
Can you bring my mum up?"

795
00:41:40,200 --> 00:41:42,680
So a couple of days later,
I picked his mum up,

796
00:41:42,800 --> 00:41:44,520
drove her up to Rugby as well.

797
00:41:45,400 --> 00:41:47,880
Armza Ruddock. I was introduced to
her as Aunty Gee.

798
00:41:47,960 --> 00:41:49,080
But, yeah, Armza Ruddock.

799
00:41:49,160 --> 00:41:52,520
She was the mother of
Yvonne Ruddock and Paul Ruddock.

800
00:41:52,600 --> 00:41:56,640
Aunty Gee's family in Rugby
lived three doors away from us,

801
00:41:56,760 --> 00:42:00,600
so when she came to, uh,
mum's side of the family,

802
00:42:00,640 --> 00:42:03,440
they came there, and they must have
said, "Well, your dad's side of family

803
00:42:03,520 --> 00:42:05,640
the Ruddocks, actually
live three doors up down the road,"

804
00:42:05,680 --> 00:42:07,800
so when they came and knocked
on our door, and went "Oh, my God!"

805
00:42:07,880 --> 00:42:09,560
They told us about the party,
"Oh, we're having a party next year.

806
00:42:09,640 --> 00:42:10,640
Do you want to come?"

807
00:42:10,680 --> 00:42:12,480
We were getting to know each other--
the whole party was like to

808
00:42:12,560 --> 00:42:15,080
get to know each other's family
because we didn't know each other before.

809
00:42:15,160 --> 00:42:16,840
We didn't know we had
that family in London.

810
00:42:19,640 --> 00:42:22,160
[Wayne Haynes]
My sound system played at the party,

811
00:42:22,280 --> 00:42:25,960
so we knew about the party from the time
that they started to put it together.

812
00:42:26,040 --> 00:42:29,360
I wanted to have something
to identity for myself so...

813
00:42:29,440 --> 00:42:31,800
me and my friends at school,
we created the sound.

814
00:42:31,880 --> 00:42:34,600
Steve, Gerry, and myself,

815
00:42:34,640 --> 00:42:36,360
we fudged this thing together.

816
00:42:37,880 --> 00:42:41,680
Steve Collins, we used to
call him Brillo at school.

817
00:42:41,800 --> 00:42:44,920
He had a great big afro,
and it was just wiry and...

818
00:42:45,000 --> 00:42:47,640
Steve's dad,
a guy they used to call Sir Collins,

819
00:42:47,760 --> 00:42:49,360
he had a sound system.

820
00:42:49,440 --> 00:42:52,360
He gave us our first set of bass boxes.

821
00:42:52,440 --> 00:42:55,160
Gerry Francis, again,
he was into his music.

822
00:42:55,280 --> 00:42:57,920
So, either me and Steve,
or me and Gerry,

823
00:42:58,000 --> 00:42:59,680
or Gerry and Steve
were always together.

824
00:43:01,120 --> 00:43:03,800
If you lived in an area,
and you was a Black person,

825
00:43:03,880 --> 00:43:05,000
you knew the Black people.

826
00:43:06,200 --> 00:43:08,680
Yvonne's a well-known,
well-liked person.

827
00:43:08,800 --> 00:43:10,160
if we...

828
00:43:10,280 --> 00:43:13,000
give her one of the best parties
of the year,

829
00:43:13,080 --> 00:43:14,360
at the beginning of the year,

830
00:43:14,440 --> 00:43:17,160
then everybody else gonna want to
employ us for the rest of the year,

831
00:43:17,200 --> 00:43:19,160
because Yvonne's party was--

832
00:43:19,280 --> 00:43:20,760
"Yeah, that was the party!"

833
00:43:20,840 --> 00:43:22,280
On the day of the party,

834
00:43:22,360 --> 00:43:24,320
I remember my brother Andrew.

835
00:43:24,400 --> 00:43:26,880
I remember taking him
to this barber shop,

836
00:43:26,960 --> 00:43:28,960
and, you know,
he had this afro haircut.

837
00:43:29,040 --> 00:43:30,360
He was so pleased, you know,

838
00:43:30,440 --> 00:43:31,880
'cause the hair was ready now,
you know what I mean?

839
00:43:31,960 --> 00:43:34,200
And my sister Denise,
Denise was quite excited--

840
00:43:34,320 --> 00:43:36,320
I remember her in a suit she had on.

841
00:43:36,400 --> 00:43:39,160
Mate, I was mad excited.
[laughs]

842
00:43:39,200 --> 00:43:41,800
I didn't know really
what to expect of the party.

843
00:43:41,880 --> 00:43:44,800
I just knew... I'm going to party!

844
00:43:44,880 --> 00:43:46,480
[♪ funky music]

845
00:43:46,560 --> 00:43:48,280
[doorbell rings]

846
00:43:50,720 --> 00:43:53,840
[Sandra Ruddock] We got there
just after about half past eight.

847
00:43:53,920 --> 00:43:55,600
Everybody was running around,

848
00:43:55,680 --> 00:43:58,080
and people were being
served drinks, and...

849
00:43:58,160 --> 00:44:00,680
food was being cooked.

850
00:44:00,760 --> 00:44:04,560
My mother in-law made curry goat,
rice and peas, chicken.

851
00:44:04,640 --> 00:44:07,880
My daughter Viv was in every room,
everywhere.

852
00:44:07,960 --> 00:44:09,640
[Richard Gooding]
When we went to the party,

853
00:44:09,720 --> 00:44:11,960
I mean, I dropped them off there first.

854
00:44:12,040 --> 00:44:14,120
I think it must have been
about half nine or something.

855
00:44:14,200 --> 00:44:15,640
I mean, it was a really nice house.

856
00:44:15,720 --> 00:44:18,240
I mean, you could see that the house
was really well looked after.

857
00:44:20,360 --> 00:44:22,280
[Andrew Hastings]
The party was on the first floor,

858
00:44:22,360 --> 00:44:25,560
the front room on the ground floor,
and the kitchen is one big room,

859
00:44:25,640 --> 00:44:30,000
and it's got concertina
wooden doors that used to slide open.

860
00:44:30,080 --> 00:44:33,120
But that evening,
the doors were closed.

861
00:44:33,200 --> 00:44:35,520
The front room was special.

862
00:44:35,600 --> 00:44:37,680
We hardly ever used the front room.

863
00:44:41,120 --> 00:44:44,640
Where the party was, was actually
my mother-in-law's bedroom,

864
00:44:45,560 --> 00:44:46,600
so that was all cleared out.

865
00:44:46,680 --> 00:44:48,880
All the furniture
was down in the basement,

866
00:44:48,960 --> 00:44:50,520
and you had to come to the kitchen

867
00:44:50,600 --> 00:44:53,720
if you wanted a drink
or you wanted to eat food.

868
00:44:53,800 --> 00:44:57,800
[♪ lovers rock playing]

869
00:44:57,880 --> 00:45:01,560
[Wayne Haynes] We had the whole thing.
The crowd was going, the vibes was nice,

870
00:45:01,640 --> 00:45:02,920
the music was right.

871
00:45:03,520 --> 00:45:07,000
[♪ music continuing]

872
00:45:07,080 --> 00:45:10,440
I remember thinking this party is amazing,

873
00:45:10,520 --> 00:45:12,920
because obviously, I'm used
to my brothers playing music,

874
00:45:13,000 --> 00:45:14,320
so I knew all the tunes.

875
00:45:14,400 --> 00:45:15,880
Do you know what I mean?
All the lovers rock tunes.

876
00:45:15,960 --> 00:45:19,640
[♪ music continuing]

877
00:45:19,720 --> 00:45:21,880
[George Ruddock] My sister was dancing
with this guy all night called Frank,

878
00:45:21,960 --> 00:45:25,520
and they were rubbing up, scrubbing up,
as you want to call it, all night long.

879
00:45:25,600 --> 00:45:27,280
And I'm thinking,
"What's he doing with my sister?!"

880
00:45:27,360 --> 00:45:28,960
But... it's a party.

881
00:45:33,160 --> 00:45:36,040
You know, it's funny,
music can tell the story of my life.

882
00:45:36,120 --> 00:45:39,160
[♪ Jean Adebambo: "Paradise"]

883
00:45:39,240 --> 00:45:43,200
The track for '81 is definitely
Jean Adebambo, "Paradise."

884
00:45:44,600 --> 00:45:49,040
[♪ Jean Adebambo:
"Paradise" continues]

885
00:45:49,120 --> 00:45:52,760
At the time, Jean Adebambo's song
was like one of those songs,

886
00:45:52,840 --> 00:45:55,320
it was one of those big lovers rock tunes.

887
00:45:56,320 --> 00:45:59,480
One of my favorite tunes,
my girlfriend's favorite tune at the time.

888
00:45:59,560 --> 00:46:02,480
My girlfriend at the time,
Rosaline Henry,

889
00:46:02,560 --> 00:46:04,960
I remember, when we played
that tune, she took the microphone

890
00:46:05,040 --> 00:46:06,600
and she was singing it like,

891
00:46:06,680 --> 00:46:09,120
it's the man-feeling-great
'cause she's looking at me singing,

892
00:46:09,200 --> 00:46:11,360
and she's got the mike in her hand,
so like...

893
00:46:11,440 --> 00:46:12,560
She had a good voice.
She could sing.

894
00:46:13,880 --> 00:46:17,600
[♪ Jean Adebambo:
"Paradise" continues]

895
00:46:21,480 --> 00:46:23,320
[Richard Gooding]
I was in and out of that party

896
00:46:23,400 --> 00:46:25,480
'cause, remember,
the party was a 16-year-old's party,

897
00:46:25,560 --> 00:46:28,040
right, and we were like 18, 19.

898
00:46:28,800 --> 00:46:30,720
But one or two of my friends were there,

899
00:46:30,800 --> 00:46:33,040
and I remember standing on the stairs.

900
00:46:33,120 --> 00:46:35,760
I remember I was talking
to Lloyd Hall for quite some time.

901
00:46:36,720 --> 00:46:39,280
[Wayne Haynes]
The party was great, it was a good party.

902
00:46:39,360 --> 00:46:43,080
You had generations coming
at different times,

903
00:46:43,160 --> 00:46:46,000
so you had the younger ones
who were there from the beginning.

904
00:46:47,480 --> 00:46:48,840
And then you had the older ones

905
00:46:48,920 --> 00:46:50,720
who were coming in
for Angela's side of the party,

906
00:46:50,800 --> 00:46:52,840
and they're coming in at like, 12:00.

907
00:46:52,920 --> 00:46:55,360
So, loads of people were there.

908
00:46:55,440 --> 00:46:57,880
You had to squeeze past people
going up the stairs.

909
00:47:00,920 --> 00:47:03,800
[Andrew Hastings]
I stayed downstairs most of the evening.

910
00:47:03,880 --> 00:47:06,440
The older adults were there,
in the kitchen.

911
00:47:06,520 --> 00:47:09,720
They were having their sort of
own little party in the kitchen.

912
00:47:10,400 --> 00:47:13,040
Paul was just generally
keeping an eye on

913
00:47:13,120 --> 00:47:15,000
who was coming into the house.

914
00:47:17,360 --> 00:47:20,440
[Sandra Ruddock]
It got to about half past three,

915
00:47:20,520 --> 00:47:23,560
and my Viv was really overtired,

916
00:47:23,640 --> 00:47:25,440
and I took Viv home.

917
00:47:26,760 --> 00:47:28,560
I don't know no more till

918
00:47:28,640 --> 00:47:30,960
about 8:30, when my door went.

919
00:47:32,520 --> 00:47:36,120
[Denise Gooding] Richard had come
a couple of times to pick us up,

920
00:47:36,200 --> 00:47:38,760
but this'll tell you how good
the party was, we were not ready.

921
00:47:38,840 --> 00:47:41,600
The first time he came, we were like,
"No, we're having too much fun."

922
00:47:41,680 --> 00:47:43,480
Second time, "We're having too much fun."
[laughs]

923
00:47:43,560 --> 00:47:46,240
And then when he came the last time,

924
00:47:46,320 --> 00:47:48,080
I couldn't find my bag.

925
00:47:48,160 --> 00:47:50,320
[Richard Gooding] Denise and Andrew
were quite close together

926
00:47:50,400 --> 00:47:51,720
and doing a lot of stuff together,

927
00:47:51,800 --> 00:47:54,800
so I didn't really feel
that there was anything wrong.

928
00:47:54,880 --> 00:47:56,920
Remember, David
was there as well and...

929
00:47:57,000 --> 00:47:59,000
we weren't new to the Ruddock house.

930
00:47:59,840 --> 00:48:01,240
[Andrew Hastings]
You know, it was getting about

931
00:48:01,320 --> 00:48:03,760
four, five o'clock in the morning,
that sort of time,

932
00:48:03,840 --> 00:48:07,480
so I thought, "Oh, I'll just go
and sit in the front room."

933
00:48:07,560 --> 00:48:09,120
And...

934
00:48:09,200 --> 00:48:12,120
I think a group of girls came in,
about five girls.

935
00:48:12,200 --> 00:48:15,880
I remember them like asking if
I had a cigarette or something...

936
00:48:15,960 --> 00:48:17,680
Andrew was just sitting there.

937
00:48:17,760 --> 00:48:19,760
I think he was a bit tired...

938
00:48:21,400 --> 00:48:25,960
but mainly we was
just sitting there, just... talking.

939
00:48:26,960 --> 00:48:30,160
And then they left,
and I thought, "Right, I'll get up."

940
00:48:30,840 --> 00:48:32,080
[Wayne Haynes]
At 5:30 in the morning,

941
00:48:32,160 --> 00:48:34,760
I could still see people dancing.

942
00:48:34,840 --> 00:48:36,680
It wasn't just a couple
of people in the room.

943
00:48:36,760 --> 00:48:38,320
We still had a lot of people in there.

944
00:48:40,240 --> 00:48:42,840
The last track I remember
being played was

945
00:48:42,920 --> 00:48:48,360
"Kingdom Rise and Kingdom Fall"
by Wailing Souls.

946
00:48:50,040 --> 00:48:52,600
"Kingdom Rise and Kingdom Fall."

947
00:48:53,800 --> 00:48:57,360
[♪ Wailing Souls:
"Kingdom Rise and Kingdom Fall"]

948
00:48:58,480 --> 00:49:01,120
[Andrew Hastings]
In the kitchen, Paul's mum, Armza,

949
00:49:01,200 --> 00:49:05,360
out the blue, she just said,
she said something to Lesley Morris,

950
00:49:05,960 --> 00:49:08,520
"Go and check on... go and check..."

951
00:49:08,600 --> 00:49:11,600
And he went out the room,
and he come back.

952
00:49:11,680 --> 00:49:12,960
Said, "Look at this."

953
00:49:13,920 --> 00:49:15,360
[fire roars]

954
00:49:15,440 --> 00:49:18,560
The ground floor front room
was totally ablaze.

955
00:49:18,640 --> 00:49:22,120
People ran out into the street.

956
00:49:22,200 --> 00:49:25,640
I remember...
I think it was Paul's mum,

957
00:49:25,720 --> 00:49:28,680
shouting up the stairs, "Fire, fire!"

958
00:49:31,000 --> 00:49:32,600
The window exploded.

959
00:49:32,680 --> 00:49:35,880
Bang! And it was like,
glass flying everywhere, you know.

960
00:49:35,960 --> 00:49:40,160
You had to run into the road,
and Paul was next to me.

961
00:49:40,880 --> 00:49:43,760
He said to me, "Where's Yvonne?
Have you seen Yvonne?"

962
00:49:43,840 --> 00:49:47,040
I said, "No. I think
she's still in there, Paul."

963
00:49:47,120 --> 00:49:50,760
With that, he said, "Stay here,"
and he just ran straight into the house.

964
00:49:50,840 --> 00:49:55,000
[♪ Wailing Souls: "Kingdom Rise
and Kingdom Fall" continues]

965
00:49:56,000 --> 00:49:59,000
I started to smell something,
like burning,

966
00:50:00,400 --> 00:50:02,880
but something getting blown,
an amplifier blowing

967
00:50:02,960 --> 00:50:05,080
or something was a regular occurrence.

968
00:50:05,160 --> 00:50:07,120
And I remember saying
to Steve Collins like,

969
00:50:07,200 --> 00:50:08,920
"Can you smell that? Can you smell that?"

970
00:50:09,000 --> 00:50:10,760
and he was like,
"Yeah, it smells like something burning.

971
00:50:10,840 --> 00:50:12,560
Let me go and have
a look behind the case,"

972
00:50:12,640 --> 00:50:14,560
where we keep all the amplifiers.

973
00:50:14,640 --> 00:50:17,120
I think Gerry was probably still
in the record box,

974
00:50:17,200 --> 00:50:19,200
searching for the next tune
sort of thing.

975
00:50:19,280 --> 00:50:22,280
So, I said, "You know what? I'm going
to go and get a drink. You want something?

976
00:50:22,360 --> 00:50:25,520
And that was it, and I went off.
That's the last time I saw everybody.

977
00:50:28,120 --> 00:50:30,720
[♪ Wailing Souls: "Kingdom Rise
and Kingdom Fall" continues]

978
00:50:30,800 --> 00:50:34,680
I've come down the first set of stairs,
turned the balcony,

979
00:50:34,760 --> 00:50:37,520
and when I saw the smoke,
I turned round and ran back upstairs.

980
00:50:38,520 --> 00:50:41,000
I remember going back into the room
and shouting "Fire..."

981
00:50:42,040 --> 00:50:45,680
for which I believe,
Paul had been in the room already...

982
00:50:45,760 --> 00:50:47,680
[♪ Wailing Souls: "Kingdom Rise
and Kingdom Fall" continues]

983
00:50:50,440 --> 00:50:53,440
We were in the party,
and Paul came in...

984
00:50:54,200 --> 00:50:56,440
and Paul came in,
and he shouted fire.

985
00:50:56,520 --> 00:50:57,520
And, it must have been
some kind of light,

986
00:50:57,600 --> 00:50:59,440
whether it was the fire behind him
or whatever,

987
00:50:59,520 --> 00:51:00,600
like a silhouette on him.

988
00:51:00,680 --> 00:51:03,840
And when I looked at him properly,
you could see the soot on his hair.

989
00:51:03,920 --> 00:51:05,400
You could see stuff in his hair,

990
00:51:05,480 --> 00:51:06,880
and that was the last time I saw him.

991
00:51:06,960 --> 00:51:10,600
But that would mean that Paul either
passed me coming up the stairs

992
00:51:10,680 --> 00:51:12,640
or passed me coming down the stairs.

993
00:51:12,720 --> 00:51:14,400
Don't remember that.

994
00:51:15,720 --> 00:51:16,920
[♪ music ends abruptly]

995
00:51:17,640 --> 00:51:20,360
Everything's gone out,
there's no electric, I can't see anybody,

996
00:51:20,440 --> 00:51:21,760
I don't know what's going on.

997
00:51:23,160 --> 00:51:24,760
And all hell broke loose.

998
00:51:25,320 --> 00:51:27,200
And people started to panic, right,
so even when you'd get to a window,

999
00:51:27,280 --> 00:51:30,600
people are pushing you back,
and there's panic.

1000
00:51:31,200 --> 00:51:34,120
What I-- what I remember
and what I saw

1001
00:51:35,480 --> 00:51:38,400
was like watching
an old Charlie Chaplin movie,

1002
00:51:38,480 --> 00:51:39,960
a black-and-white
Charlie Chaplin movie,

1003
00:51:40,040 --> 00:51:43,640
where you know everything
looks like it's going in slow motion,

1004
00:51:43,720 --> 00:51:45,280
but it's going really fast.

1005
00:51:45,880 --> 00:51:47,640
Like you got people
screaming and shouting,

1006
00:51:47,720 --> 00:51:50,200
and you got people going to try
and climb out a window

1007
00:51:50,280 --> 00:51:52,000
and other people pulling them back...

1008
00:51:52,080 --> 00:51:53,520
[stammers]

1009
00:51:53,600 --> 00:51:55,520
The whole place just went mad.

1010
00:51:56,320 --> 00:51:57,960
And I remember it getting really hot.

1011
00:52:00,400 --> 00:52:01,760
And it was coming up.

1012
00:52:01,840 --> 00:52:04,960
Heat was coming up from underneath,

1013
00:52:05,040 --> 00:52:07,440
and it was just getting hotter,
and you know what...

1014
00:52:09,000 --> 00:52:11,920
I remember, standing there,
doing this, thinking that I am wiping--

1015
00:52:12,000 --> 00:52:15,040
Sweating, wiping sweat.

1016
00:52:17,280 --> 00:52:19,800
And... turns out later on,

1017
00:52:19,880 --> 00:52:21,960
that that sweat
was actually my skin

1018
00:52:22,040 --> 00:52:24,680
that was peeling off
of my face like that.

1019
00:52:24,760 --> 00:52:28,480
It felt like it was...
like, I'd got sand all over my face.

1020
00:52:29,400 --> 00:52:33,480
And the more I wiped it, the more
the skin kept coming off of my face.

1021
00:52:34,600 --> 00:52:36,720
I remember when
I put my head out the window,

1022
00:52:36,800 --> 00:52:38,120
I was getting burnt.

1023
00:52:38,200 --> 00:52:41,840
and in the confusion, I am thinking,
"Why am I getting burnt?"

1024
00:52:41,920 --> 00:52:44,960
And I will never forget,
the floor felt spongy to me.

1025
00:52:45,040 --> 00:52:46,520
It felt spongy.

1026
00:52:47,760 --> 00:52:51,880
I was at the top of the house,
and it's a three-story house.

1027
00:52:51,960 --> 00:52:54,280
So I was at the top in the back

1028
00:52:54,360 --> 00:52:57,760
when I heard someone shout fire

1029
00:52:57,840 --> 00:53:00,560
from downstairs,
as they were running up the stairs.

1030
00:53:00,640 --> 00:53:03,080
Um, we could hear someone shouting,
"Fire, fire, fire!"

1031
00:53:03,160 --> 00:53:06,800
But it all happened so quickly.

1032
00:53:06,880 --> 00:53:11,000
Yvonne started to run downstairs,
shouting for her mum.

1033
00:53:11,080 --> 00:53:13,600
David then ran after her,

1034
00:53:13,680 --> 00:53:16,640
and I looked at Andrew,
David went that way,

1035
00:53:16,720 --> 00:53:20,600
it just seemed like seconds
before it was just thick black smoke.

1036
00:53:20,680 --> 00:53:22,920
And you can't see anything,
you can't breathe,

1037
00:53:23,000 --> 00:53:25,320
and you can't feel--
it is the thickest smoke.

1038
00:53:26,480 --> 00:53:28,040
I remember...

1039
00:53:28,120 --> 00:53:31,240
there was about four people
just standing up on that wall,

1040
00:53:31,320 --> 00:53:34,000
just leaning, like in shock.

1041
00:53:34,080 --> 00:53:37,680
They didn't know where to go,
what to do, they're just standing there.

1042
00:53:39,880 --> 00:53:44,880
And I remember turning like that,
looking at them, looking at the window,

1043
00:53:44,960 --> 00:53:46,960
and the chaos and the mayhem
that was going on

1044
00:53:47,040 --> 00:53:49,480
of people trying to get out of the window.

1045
00:53:51,920 --> 00:53:55,600
And I just grabbed my coat back on,
and just opened the door and...

1046
00:53:55,680 --> 00:53:58,880
and went running through the fire
and tried to get upstairs...

1047
00:54:01,600 --> 00:54:03,760
and I just remember going...

1048
00:54:03,840 --> 00:54:05,880
feeling my way through the smoke.

1049
00:54:07,160 --> 00:54:10,880
Falling over, tripping up, scared,

1050
00:54:10,960 --> 00:54:12,720
really, really, really scared.

1051
00:54:12,800 --> 00:54:15,840
The heat from the smoke
is so intense,

1052
00:54:15,920 --> 00:54:17,560
I can remember feeling like,

1053
00:54:17,640 --> 00:54:20,120
I'm being pushed, you know,
like we're all trying to fight

1054
00:54:20,200 --> 00:54:22,440
to get to-to this one window.

1055
00:54:23,960 --> 00:54:26,880
I'm only 11,
and I remember thinking that...

1056
00:54:26,960 --> 00:54:28,960
I haven't even lived my life,
do you know what I mean?

1057
00:54:29,040 --> 00:54:31,560
I have not even lived my life and now
this is it, do you know what I mean?

1058
00:54:32,920 --> 00:54:35,960
There was some guys trapped in--

1059
00:54:36,040 --> 00:54:38,760
I think, they must have run up
to the top floor,

1060
00:54:38,840 --> 00:54:41,440
and they were having trouble
getting the windows open.

1061
00:54:42,400 --> 00:54:45,240
And I can remember these guys
kicking the windows out

1062
00:54:45,320 --> 00:54:48,120
and literally taking a running jump,

1063
00:54:48,200 --> 00:54:50,520
coming flying out the windows.

1064
00:54:50,600 --> 00:54:52,480
And they had to jump, because...

1065
00:54:52,560 --> 00:54:54,400
there were railings,

1066
00:54:55,120 --> 00:54:57,600
and they...
they obviously realized they had to...

1067
00:54:57,680 --> 00:54:58,680
[whooshing sound]

1068
00:55:00,200 --> 00:55:01,360
[George Ruddock] I jumped...

1069
00:55:01,920 --> 00:55:03,200
out of the second floor window.

1070
00:55:03,280 --> 00:55:04,680
But, um...

1071
00:55:04,760 --> 00:55:06,280
I remember I crawled onto the ledge...

1072
00:55:07,280 --> 00:55:10,480
the ledge, and I thought to myself,
"You can't jump out,"

1073
00:55:11,120 --> 00:55:13,680
because, at the front of the house,
you had--you had spikes

1074
00:55:13,760 --> 00:55:15,360
the front of the gates...

1075
00:55:15,440 --> 00:55:16,720
you had spikes.

1076
00:55:16,800 --> 00:55:18,560
So if you jumped out,
you could have landed on the spikes,

1077
00:55:18,640 --> 00:55:20,680
so I just jumped out
and jumped straight down.

1078
00:55:21,680 --> 00:55:23,800
I only hurt my arm..
'cause my arm,

1079
00:55:24,600 --> 00:55:26,120
couldn't come down.

1080
00:55:26,200 --> 00:55:27,240
That's all I remember,
my arm was up there

1081
00:55:27,320 --> 00:55:29,000
and that was it,
I went to the hospital,

1082
00:55:29,080 --> 00:55:30,960
with my arm up there
for some reason.

1083
00:55:31,040 --> 00:55:33,240
But that was my only injury I had,

1084
00:55:33,320 --> 00:55:34,720
so I was like a little cat.

1085
00:55:34,800 --> 00:55:37,000
Desmond Brown was like a cat.
He got out there.

1086
00:55:37,080 --> 00:55:39,640
So we were lucky, where other people...

1087
00:55:39,720 --> 00:55:41,400
weren't so lucky.
[sniffles]

1088
00:55:42,560 --> 00:55:45,320
I think I was trying to obviously,

1089
00:55:45,400 --> 00:55:47,640
navigate my way
out of this window when

1090
00:55:47,720 --> 00:55:50,200
last thing you know,
I'm being lifted.

1091
00:55:50,280 --> 00:55:52,920
It's like I was coming down
the drainpipe with somebody

1092
00:55:53,000 --> 00:55:55,600
and then, halfway down,
I heard someone say,

1093
00:55:55,680 --> 00:55:57,600
that's the last thing I can remember,
someone saying,

1094
00:55:57,680 --> 00:55:58,920
"You're on your own now."

1095
00:55:59,800 --> 00:56:04,000
And then, I remember falling
and hitting on my back.

1096
00:56:05,040 --> 00:56:07,320
Eventually,
I got to the top of the stairs.

1097
00:56:07,400 --> 00:56:09,560
I remember falling over twice.

1098
00:56:10,400 --> 00:56:13,120
And, um, when I got to the window,

1099
00:56:13,200 --> 00:56:15,080
there was already a guy
on the window ledge.

1100
00:56:17,000 --> 00:56:18,120
He climbed out...

1101
00:56:19,080 --> 00:56:20,400
and I went right behind him.

1102
00:56:20,480 --> 00:56:23,920
[chuckles] I was like,
"Whatever is happening, I ain't dying."

1103
00:56:24,000 --> 00:56:26,440
I went straight behind him,
and I went out the window,

1104
00:56:26,520 --> 00:56:27,720
stood on the window ledge...

1105
00:56:29,000 --> 00:56:32,440
feeling for a drainpipe now,
'cause my eyes was hurting...

1106
00:56:32,520 --> 00:56:35,120
my-- everything is just going mad, I'm...

1107
00:56:35,200 --> 00:56:37,760
adrenaline's flowing,
I can't think straight...

1108
00:56:38,640 --> 00:56:40,640
I found myself a drainpipe...

1109
00:56:41,960 --> 00:56:44,400
grabbed hold of it,
and started climbing down.

1110
00:56:45,320 --> 00:56:48,680
I think my head just about got below

1111
00:56:48,760 --> 00:56:51,280
the level of what would be
the window ledge.

1112
00:56:52,080 --> 00:56:54,240
And the drainpipe just
pulled away from the wall.

1113
00:56:55,240 --> 00:56:57,320
I ended up falling down

1114
00:56:58,360 --> 00:57:01,880
and going straight through the roof
of an old outside toilet.

1115
00:57:01,960 --> 00:57:03,400
[crash]

1116
00:57:06,400 --> 00:57:09,160
I've landed on my right leg.

1117
00:57:09,880 --> 00:57:12,480
And my right leg ended up in my chest.

1118
00:57:14,080 --> 00:57:17,480
I had smashed my hip
into a hundred odd pieces,

1119
00:57:18,640 --> 00:57:22,760
broke my thigh, broke my shin,
smashed my foot up.

1120
00:57:23,360 --> 00:57:25,880
I see Yvonne jump out the window.

1121
00:57:25,960 --> 00:57:28,040
She looked badly injured.

1122
00:57:28,120 --> 00:57:32,160
I was getting really worried,
I thought Paul hasn't come out.

1123
00:57:32,240 --> 00:57:33,440
[sirens blare]

1124
00:57:33,520 --> 00:57:36,200
The fire brigade
seemed to turn up in minutes.

1125
00:57:36,280 --> 00:57:37,520
The guy jumped out.

1126
00:57:37,600 --> 00:57:40,760
I don't know why he come over to me,
he come running over to me,

1127
00:57:40,840 --> 00:57:43,600
and he said, "Is there anyone in there?"

1128
00:57:43,680 --> 00:57:45,560
And I said,
"Yeah, it's full of young kids."

1129
00:57:46,520 --> 00:57:48,200
And they went straight in.

1130
00:57:48,800 --> 00:57:50,840
And I thought,
"Oh, thank God for that."

1131
00:57:50,920 --> 00:57:53,080
So I was then waiting there
outside the house

1132
00:57:53,160 --> 00:57:54,360
in the middle of the road,

1133
00:57:54,880 --> 00:57:59,280
and I see Paul being
brought out on a ladder.

1134
00:58:00,800 --> 00:58:03,160
They used the ladder as a stretcher.

1135
00:58:03,240 --> 00:58:06,080
They put him straight
in the back of the ambulance.

1136
00:58:06,160 --> 00:58:08,800
They said,
"Get in, go in with him."

1137
00:58:08,880 --> 00:58:13,360
[exhales] When I came to,
there was a person either side of me,

1138
00:58:14,360 --> 00:58:16,880
and I remember one of them
was saying, "Help me!"

1139
00:58:16,960 --> 00:58:18,800
But I was thinking...

1140
00:58:18,880 --> 00:58:21,320
all I kept thinking about was,
"Where are my brothers?

1141
00:58:21,400 --> 00:58:22,920
What's happened to David,
what's happened to Andrew?

1142
00:58:23,000 --> 00:58:24,000
Where are they?"

1143
00:58:24,080 --> 00:58:25,640
No one could tell me anything.
Do you know what I mean?

1144
00:58:25,720 --> 00:58:26,720
It was just horrible.

1145
00:58:28,040 --> 00:58:29,360
My sister, Claudette Ruddock,

1146
00:58:29,440 --> 00:58:30,800
before the fire started,

1147
00:58:30,880 --> 00:58:32,960
she saw somebody in a white car,

1148
00:58:33,040 --> 00:58:34,920
throw something in the house.

1149
00:58:35,000 --> 00:58:38,000
So, a lot of people believed
it was a... definitely a racist fire,

1150
00:58:38,080 --> 00:58:40,200
a fire attack on that party.

1151
00:58:40,280 --> 00:58:43,280
That's what they believed,
and all of us believed that.

1152
00:58:43,360 --> 00:58:45,400
A hundred percent.
Well, why wouldn't you?

1153
00:58:48,400 --> 00:58:52,520
[♪ somber music]